Installation via Pre-Built Binaries

Installation via Pre-Built Binaries#

UrbanVerse runs on top of the NVIDIA Isaac Sim simulation engine. This guide first installs Isaac Sim from its binary distribution, then sets up the UrbanVerse source code.

Isaac Sim 4.5.0 Isaac Lab 2.0.1 Python 3.10 Linux (64-bit)

Note

We recommend running UrbanVerse on systems with at least 32 GB RAM and 16 GB GPU VRAM. Workflows involving high-fidelity rendering of complex 3D assets may require even more GPU memory. For detailed and up-to-date hardware requirements, refer to the Isaac Sim system requirements.

Installing Isaac Sim#

Obtaining the Isaac Sim Binary Package#

Please refer to the official Isaac Sim documentation to download the most recent binary release. Starting from Isaac Sim 4.5, pre-built binaries are distributed directly as a .zip archive from NVIDIA’s website.

Before installation, ensure that your system meets the minimum hardware and software requirements listed in the official documentation.

Note

We have validated Isaac Lab and UrbanVerse using Isaac Sim 4.5.0 on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and 24.04 LTS with NVIDIA driver 535.230 on RTX 4080, RTX 4080 Super, RTX 4090, RTX 5090, RTX 6000, RTX 6000 Pro, and L40S GPUs.

Isaac Sim 4.5.0 and later can be installed by simply extracting the .zip archive. The following instructions assume the folder was unpacked to ${HOME}/isaacsim.

On Linux systems, the installation directory is typically located at ${HOME}/isaacsim.

Note

For consistency, run all commands in a bash terminal. If your shell defaults to zsh, switch temporarily by running bash before proceeding.

Verifying Your Isaac Sim Setup#

To simplify the upcoming steps, we recommend exporting two environment variables that point to the Isaac Sim installation:

# Path to the Isaac Sim installation
export ISAACSIM_PATH="${HOME}/isaacsim"

# Isaac Sim Python helper launcher
export ISAACSIM_PYTHON_EXE="${ISAACSIM_PATH}/python.sh"

You can consult the Isaac Sim documentation for more details about standard install paths.

  • Test launching the simulator GUI:

    ${ISAACSIM_PATH}/isaac-sim.sh

  • Test launching Isaac Sim through Python:

    # Confirm python path is configured correctly
${ISAACSIM_PYTHON_EXE} -c "print('Isaac Sim environment detected.')"

# Confirm Isaac Sim can be launched from python
${ISAACSIM_PYTHON_EXE} ${ISAACSIM_PATH}/standalone_examples/api/isaacsim.core.api/add_cubes.py

If you encounter crashes or import errors, verify that Isaac Sim is installed correctly and consult the FAQs and troubleshooting pages in the Isaac Sim documentation and user forums.

Note

If you encounter ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'xxx', ensure your conda environment is activated and run:

source _isaac_sim/setup_conda_env.sh

Installing UrbanVerse#

Cloning the UrbanVerse Repository#

Clone the UrbanVerse codebase into your working directory:

git clone -b main --depth 1 "<URL OMITTED FOR DOUBLE-BLIND REVIEW>"

Note

The urbanverse.sh helper script simplifies common setup tasks such as installing extensions, creating conda environments, and generating VSCode settings.

./urbanverse.sh --help

usage: urbanverse.sh [-h] [-i] [-v] [-c] [-a]
    Utility to manage UrbanVerse.

optional arguments:
    -h, --help           Show this help message.
    -i, --install        Install UrbanVerse extensions and dependencies.
    -v, --vscode         Generate VSCode settings.
    -c, --conda [NAME]   Create a conda environment (default: "urbanverse").
    -a, --advanced       Install advanced components.

Linking Isaac Sim into UrbanVerse#

UrbanVerse expects a symbolic link to the Isaac Sim installation under the _isaac_sim directory. This gives UrbanVerse direct access to Isaac Sim’s modules and extensions.

cd UrbanVerse
ln -s ${HOME}/isaacsim ./_isaac_sim
# Alternatively, use an absolute path to the Isaac Sim installation.

Creating the Conda Environment#

bash urbanverse.sh -c [env_name]   # Default environment name: "urbanverse"

Activate the environment before continuing:

conda activate urbanverse

Once activated, the standard python executable in this environment (python or python3) will be used for UrbanVerse.

Installing UrbanVerse#

We provide an automatic installation script urbanverse.sh that simplifies the installation process:

./urbanverse.sh --install
./urbanverse.sh --advanced    # Optional: install advanced features

Note

Basic installation (--install) includes:

  • Core UrbanVerse dependencies

  • UrbanVerse-100K APIs

  • Core 3rd-party modules and their model weights (e.g., MASt3R, CLIP, SAM-2, DINOv2, Mask2Former, Faiss)

  • The full UrbanVerse-Gen real-to-sim pipeline (3D semantic layout parsing and extraction → asset retrieval → USD scene generation)

  • Robot learning modules for training and evaluating agents in UrbanVerse environments

Advanced installation (--advanced) additionally includes:

  • Dynamic agents (pedestrians, riders and vehicles) populated using ORCA algorithm

  • UrbanVerse’s automatic asset annotation toolkit (semantic / physical / affordance attributes via GPT-4.1)

  • VR interaction tools for exploring UrbanVerse environments